3 Mrs Propamall
by Roztov
Summary: The housekeeper gets an unpleasant suprise


Mrs Propamall shook the rain from her umbrella and entered the towers vestibule. Mumbling and grumbling to herself, she  
put the brolly in the hat stand and then removed her coat. As she always did when she knew she was alone in the tower  
she talked to herself,  
'Another cold morning, Prudence, winter is really here at last. This predication is something awful!'

Mrs Propamall was infamous for getting her words mixed up. If someone had been listening to her near endless  
monologue they might have worked out the old lady had meant 'precipitation'.

She hung up her coat and ascended the stairs to the kitchen. Everything was exactly as she left it. The kitchen boy  
had the day off, and Flora, the dwarven chambermaid would not be in until the afternoon.  
The cook had sworn never to come back after an argument with one of the halflings.  
With all the usual inhabitants out on wild adventures the place didn't take much looking after, anyway.  
'High adventures, my foot' the housekeeper mumbled ,'Gallivanting off with elves and fairies... and worse!'

Mrs Propamall started the ritual of putting on the big copper kettle that would provide tea for her, Flora and the  
cantankerous old dwarf who sometimes stopped by to fix things. Supposedly he was the janitor, but he did a lot more  
complaining than he did actual work. Mrs Propamall wondered why Baron Battleshield had hired him in the first place.  
'Miserable old git.' she muttered.

Prudence Propamall was, in actual fact, a human. Being a shade under five foot tall though, she could pass as a skinny  
dwarf. Her and her husband had come all the way from Freeport, to escape the endless feuds and pogroms of the huge city.  
Her and her spouse, like so many others, had taken the journey of tears across the ocean, a stream of humanity, driven  
ever eastwards in the hope of better things. They had never made it to Faydark though. Here, he had finally died  
of influenza, brought on by the inclement weather up in the Butcherblock mountains, and his wife did not take  
one single step further east from that very day. Mrs Propamall had suffered a lot of hardship in her long life.  
'Bloody weather!', she cursed under her breath.

But maybe things were starting to look up for her she thought. This job was paying her handsomely and she even wondered  
what she should do with all the money she was earning. There wasn't much for a septuagenarian to spend money on  
here in Stonebridge.  
'Nekkid high elves to massage me poor old knees.', she muttered and then cackled to herself.

After a cup of tea, and some time sorting out the orders of food and wine for the next month at the kitchen table, she  
went to take and inventory of the larder. This room had slits in the wall, to keep it cool, so she took her shawl from  
the rack in the kitchen and wrapped herself up in it to keep herself warm.

'At least Freeport was warm, not like this. A persons extreamlies could freeze off in this weather.'

She was used to some funny goings on in the tower, but she was surprised by what she found unexpectedly in the larder.  
On the shelf next to the door were two large bundles wrapped up in black cloths.

'What's this?', she asked herself.

Roztov had just that moment stabled his horse and stepped up into the kitchen when he heard a terrified shriek come  
from the larder.  
'What in the name of?!', he cried and rushed in.

There was the housekeeper, her back up against the wall, her hands held up to her mouth, aghast. She looked down an object  
on the floor. Looking down Roztov saw nothing less than a severed head, its doleful eyes gazing back up at the terrified old  
woman.  
'Oh for the love of Tunare!', he sighed and quickly covered up the head, 'Why did he put them in here?'

He quickly ushered the old lady out into the kitchen and shut the door behind him.  
'I'm sorry Mrs P, that must have been Corius, I will take them upstairs and put them out the way somewhere safe in  
a minute. If Xomano finds out he has been storing them with the food she'll kill him.'  
'Buh but!, it was a decoration!'  
Roztov rolled his eyes to the ceiling before mentally replacing the word decoration for decapitation.  
'Yes, I'm sorry, but they were bad dwarves. Traitors to the king in Thurgadin.'  
'Traitors or not, there is no need have them in the larder ready to plagiarise old wimmin'  
Roztov, trying his best to calm her down, lead her to the old armchair at the back of the kitchen and sat her down,  
and made a few soothing noises.  
'I will definitely have a word with him about that, Mrs P.'  
'It was enough to make me go apologetic.'  
'Err.. apoplexic?'  
'That as well!'

Later, and four further stories up, Roztov sat at a window by the tower, using the light to write some things down  
and to draw up some plans. Flora, who was young and always fascinated by the people who lived in the tower had found  
some small task to do in the room. She was keeping so quiet though that he hadn't noticed her.  
He hadn't even really noticed that some other people had entered the tower. As he scribbled away, not one, but  
two people passed him on there way up to the living area.  
One of them even nudged the other and smiled a small silent joke as they passed the scribe.

But just then almost all of the light was blocked from the window, which made Roztov look up. He looked up at what  
most people would consider to be a mobile roadblock.  
Roztov sighed and said 'What is it Dentist?'  
'Hur hur hur, ' laughed the ogre, his deep baritone laughter sounding almost resinous enough to break the windows.  
'Wot arr ya doin' Roztov?'  
'Just catching up with some things. I am writing about what we did in Velious.'  
Dentist removed his helmet and treated Roztov to a huge gap toothed grin,  
'Cann I be in yur storee Roztov?'  
The druid put down his quill pen and rubbed his temple.  
'You were not even there Dentist.'  
'But can I be in your storee Roztov?'  
Roztov had learned that when it came to beings that stood over ten feet tall, weighed in at over forty stone and carried  
a sword that could be used to spit roast an elephant, patience was the key.  
However, there was never going to be a clever ogre on the face of Norrath, or a particularly literate one.

Roztov picked up his pen and wrote a few words.  
'There look... Dentist the might hero, sliced the nasty giant. Who died. The end.'  
'Hur hur.' laughed the ogre then said 'That is a gud storee Roztov. Me like happy endings.'  
Roztov rolled his eyes and made motions with his hands to try and move his immense companion from the window.  
Dentist nudged the human with his elbow. This was a sign of affection in ogre society, but was like being tackled  
by an ulthork to any other smaller race.  
'Quit that! Don't make me root you, like last time!'  
A voice from upstairs called down, 'You can root me anytime Roztov, m'dear!'  
'Bloody Snells here as well. Right, that's it', he grumbled as he gathered up his papers and went downstairs.

As he went down, he met Corius who was coming up.  
'And as for you. Your heads are in the living room. Get rid of them before someone's pet eats them or Dentist finds them.'  
Corius looked down at his friends back in confusion as Roztov stormed off down into the kitchen.

Later on, Mrs Propamall handed him a cup of tea. Roztov had spent all evening sat in the kitchen armchair, but had  
stopped writing now to take a short break.  
'Thanks Mrs P.'  
'You're welcome, your lordship.', she replied.  
People had been coming into the kitchen all day, but a quick warning glance from the housekeeper made whatever greeting  
was on their lips die in their throats, and they would remove their wet cloaks in silence and tip toe upstairs.  
The Baron was not to be disturbed.

The tower wasn't particularly busy however, most people were still abroad. Some were eating upstairs, but Roztov  
was eating in the kitchen when Brond arrived.  
'Gnolls blood, what a night!', he exclaimed as he shook the rain off.  
'Good evening your grace' mumbled Mrs Propamall as the dwarf entered.  
Roztov looked up, and laid down his pen, nodding a greeting to the damp dwarf.  
Brond sat down beside his friend and before he was even aware of it, a cup of tea had been placed beside his elbow.

Having done that, Mrs Propamall decided it was time for one last check upstairs before she went home. Usually the kitchen  
was entirely her domain, but sometimes their lordships would hold ad-hoc meetings in there and although it had never  
been expressly mentioned, she always felt it wasn't her place to listen in their lordships business.  
She supposed that she should think of the womenfolk's that came here in a similar vein, but her elderly Freeporter  
mind didn't think like that. Ok, so a young halfling wench might be referred to as Baroness in legal documents, but  
did it really count in decent human society. But then, she was living in Butcherblock now.

'Bloody ankle biters the lot of em. Or Furtively Challenged I should say, if I wants to be Polecat-edly correct.'  
she grumbled as she ascended the stairs.

Mrs Propamall thought that a spade should be called a spade, and a halfling should be called a short-arse. And she  
didn't see how it had anything to do with ferrets either.

She would have to go all the way to the very top floor anyway. The room there was used only sometimes, but it would  
get warm and stuffy in almost any weather without the window open. And Mrs Propamall could guarantee that whoever  
was up there last would leave that blasted thing open. Admittedly it wasn't much of a security risk, being on the  
eighth floor, but that wasn't the point.

'Forget there own bloody heads...', then she shuddered, she had had enough of heads for today.

Puffing and panting she finally made it to the attic and waited for a moment to catch her breathe. It was then she  
realised she could here someone moving around in the room.  
She opened the door and said  
'Don't mind me, dearies, I'm only here to shut the windo... aieee!'

There before her stood a ten foot monster, surely a huge greenblood bandit, holding a severed dwarven head in its  
hands.  
'I woz just...', then he (Dentist of course!) dropped the head guiltily, which bounced on the step,  
then right through Mrs Propamalls legs making her cry  
'Lawks!'

And off it bounced down the steps, and with exact comedy timing, Snell, startled by the commotion, opened the door  
to the upper living room as the head reached the bottom and it bounded through past his shoulder and straight  
into the room and down the hatch into the upper ward-room.

This caused a startled shriek to emanate from Taldaajna who had only just arrived.  
Without even thinking she pulled back her leg and punted the head through the door. Again it descended, this time  
into the ante-chamber (or the auntie-chamber if you were Mrs Propamall) and down two more flights of steps past all  
the sleeping chambers and into the lower living room.  
This room was on two levels so the head rolled across the balcony a little and finally dropped from there into  
Tuppences lap, who had been asleep by the fire.  
With a shriek to equal that of Taldaanjas he leapt up, his robe catapulting the head across the room, where it was  
nearly snatched up by Surans suddenly very awake tiger.  
But the head was destine to be more that a big cats supper and it sailed through the air down the steep steps to land  
with a splutch on the kitchen table much to the surprise of those sat around it.  
'Him again!', cried Roztov leaping up from his chair, scattering pens and ink everywhere.  
A great dollop of ink landed on Bronds breastplate, and he looked down at it, his face going very red behind his  
beard.  
'Well, you always said you were going to get your armour dyed!', laughed Roztov.

It was three weeks before they could persuade Mrs Propamall to come back to work.


End file.
